Tourism is one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the world. In the long term, the basic indicators and trends in the industry, until 2023, are strong and continue to show a stable upward trend. Although the creation of jobs and the stimulation of economic growth are two of the most important roles of tourism, maintaining sustainability is a major problem at the global level. A review of the previous literature and previous research revealed a large gap in the definition of sustainability indicators in the sectoral analysis, as well as a lack of empirical research at the level of European Union (EU) member countries. The above is the main reason for choosing this particular topic and issue, because through a holistic approach, it makes an effort to include as many sustainability indicators as possible. The purpose of the study is to provide a bibliometric analysis of the pertinent literature with the identification of the current state of research on mainly ecological aspects of sustainable tourism development and to identify the important fields, journals, scientific works, and authors during the time period. The division of countries was made after the DEA data analysis, and the study further explores the differences in the relative efficiencies of production inputs between the two observed groups of countries, technically efficient and technically inefficient EU member states. A type of information for the panel data analysis is provided by the outcomes of the DEA analysis. According to the findings of the DEA study, 7 out of the 27 member states use production inputs technically efficiently in terms of investment per employee, final energy consumption, and social security costs. Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Spain attained technical efficiency in the majority of the observed years, whereas Austria and Germany did so in every year. Additionally, sustainable added value (SVA) in the observed tourism sector among the 27 EU member states is primarily influenced by economic and environmental (energy) indicators. Analysis of panel data for the years 2013. to 2019. is done by using dynamic panel estimators (GMM – Generalised Method of Moments). The obtained findings support earlier studies that showed a significant impact of economic and environmental factors on SVA, particularly renewable energy sources (RES) and greenhouse gas emissions. With the shift of the production process from primary resources (capital and labor) to resource-oriented inputs and subsequently increasing their efficiency, tourism businesses can lessen their environmental impact by improving resource use efficiency, primarily through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the increased use of RES. By using a systematic and visual review of studies pertinent to the development of sustainable tourism, this paper adopts a review approach that offers useful information for advancing theoretical and practical research in this area. The work's expected scientific contribution is most clearly seen in the carefully chosen research hypotheses, and the findings provide important information for policymakers as they work to further accomplish their strategic objectives, where the role of RES in tourism is becoming more and more important. Countries with a higher share of RES in total energy sources have a higher added value of the industry, while the RES variable has a significant and positive impact on the creation of SVA. Countries with a reduced need for conventional energy sources can create new employment opportunities related to the use of RES, with the effect of creating new jobs, which consequently leads to higher productivity and higher SVA.